The Josefson-Nissenzweig property for locally convex spaces

We define a locally convex space $E$ to have the $Josefson$-$Nissenzweig$ $property$ (JNP) if the identity map $(E,sigma(E,E))to ( E,beta^ast(E,E))$ is not sequentially continuous. By the classical Josefson--Nissenzweig theorem, every infinite-dimensional Banach space has the JNP. We show that for a Tychonoff space $X$, the function space $C_p(X)$ has the JNP iff there is a weak$^ast$ null-sequence ${mu_n}_{ninomega}$ of finitely supported sign-measures on $X$ with unit norm. However, for every Tychonoff space $X$, neither the space $B_1(X)$ of Baire-1 functions on $X$ nor the free locally convex space $L(X)$ over $X$ has the JNP. We also define two modifications of the JNP, called the $universal$ $JNP$ and the $JNP$ $everywhere$ (briefly, the uJNP and eJNP), and thoroughly study them in the classes of locally convex spaces, Banach spaces and function spaces. We provide a characterization of the JNP in terms of operators into locally convex spaces with the uJNP or eJNP and give numerous examples clarifying relationships between the considered notions.